dodgy public holiday

Here in Canberra we have a public holiday called Family and Community Day. It's only existed for a few years, and just happens to fall on Melbourne Cup Day, the first Tuesday of November.

Now, Melbourne Cup Day means nothing to me, but 'traditionally' lots of people take a day off and go to the races, and try to avoid cameras so the boss doesn't find out they didn't really have a sudden-onset self-resolving-in-24-hours case of leprosy. Either that or the workplace effectively shuts down for half the day so everyone can have lunch/afternoon tea, buy tickets in a sweep and have a chance at winning $10, and watch a horse race on television for a couple of minutes, cheering on a horse they'd never heard of until the sweep draw.

Of course, a Tuesday public holiday means ideal conditions for taking the Monday off as well, and having a four-day weekend. But no more! Next year, although we're keeping the public holiday, it's being moved to the first Monday of the spring school holidays.

Which is all a roundabout way of telling you I had a day off today. We headed to the coast, not to go to the beach, but so the husband could buy car parts, because New South Wales did NOT have a dodgy public holiday today (nah nah!). What fun! What joy! Hot hot hot Nowra - 36 degrees and windy. I was grumpy - so tired I was nodding off before we got out of Canberra about 8.30am, hot and headachey - but the kids were marvellous! They took a few toys and their Nintendo DSs, and coped with minimal whining. So we made it a round trip and headed further south to Bateman's Bay so they could have a paddle and wander along the beach collecting shells. Twelve hours later we were home again.

Next time I need to be a bit more positive, and remember that there's no reason I can't have a paddle too!